Dr. Erika Yourdan

In this episode of Just Like Nana, host Amie (Elizabeth) Penny Sayler is joined by Dr. Erika Yourdan, a licensed therapist and counselor, where they discuss how to use systemic thinking and nature-based healing to bridge the gap between your past and your present, helping you claim your rightful place as a cycle breaker. 

Together they explore the feeling of psychological homelessness, where the fractures in our family history leave us feeling disconnected from our roots and our sense of belonging. 

About Dr. Erika Yourdan

Dr. Erika Yourdan is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, addiction counselor, and certified EMDR practitioner based in Abilene, Texas. As a systemic thinker, Dr. Yourdan specializes in looking beyond individual symptoms to uncover the complex web of relational and ancestral transmissions that shape our lives.

In This Episode, You’ll Learn:

• Understand Psychological Homelessness: Recognize that the feeling of not fitting in often stems from a lack of emotional or ancestral safety. Healing begins when we acknowledge this displacement and start building an internal sense of home.
• The Power of Relational Transmission: Learn how trauma isn't just an event, but a vibe or way of relating that is passed down through generations. By identifying these systemic patterns, you can stop the copy-paste of trauma in your own life.
• Regulate Your Nervous System with Eco-Therapy: Discover how connecting with nature—whether through a hike or simply sitting with a tree—can help ground your felt senses and provide the safety your brain needs to process difficult family histories.
• The Logic of Safety: Move beyond the just do it scared mentality. Dr. Yourdan explains how to logic your way into safety by reminding your brain that the current environment is secure, allowing you to take steps forward, sideways, or even back with grace.
• Embrace Your Role as a Cycle Breaker: Accept your calling as a disruptor or transitional character. You don't have to heal generations of wounds in one day; even a single, small step is enough to start changing the story for your descendants.

Resources Mentioned

• What is Polyvagal Theory?
• Dr. Laurel Thorton

Connect with Dr. Erika Yourdan

https://thesumofyoucounseling.com/

Connect with the Show

• Website: justlikenana.com
• Share Your Story: If you have a family story or trauma you’re exploring, reach out via our website for a chance to be interviewed.

Connect with Just Like Nana's Website.

A proud member of the Feminist Podcasters Collective.

Theme music by Carter Penny.

Transcript

Healing Psychological Homelessness and Exploring Your Biological Superhero with Dr. Erika Yourdan

Amie Penny Sayler 0:21

Welcome to Just Like Nana. So thrilled to have you here today. Hope you have had a chance to just either whatever you need and what resonates with you, whether that's checking in with yourself and spending time just with your own your own self and your own thoughts. If that's you know, having a bath, going on a hike, just relaxing, whatever that means to you, or checking in with family, whether that's older generations, younger generations, siblings, just having that little bit of connection and belonging. I hope that you've experienced that. Today we have a wonderful guest at Just Like Nana, Dr. Erika Yourdan. She is a licensed marriage and family therapist, addiction counselor, and chemical dependency counselor. She's certified in EMDR. She practices in Abilene, Texas. And Dr. Yourdan is a systemic thinker who looks at situations from multiple angles, including an ancestral lens, instead of simply looking at a quote, situation or problem from one specific narrow perspective. We're excited to talk to Dr. Yourdan today. Dr. Yourdan, we're so thrilled to have you today. Welcome to Just Like Nana. Thank you.

Dr. Erika Yourdan 1:46

I'm so excited to be here. Thanks for having me.

Amie Penny Sayler 1:48

Absolutely. I know that our listeners are going to be excited about some of your insights and wisdom that you have to share.

Dr. Erika Yourdan 1:55

Well, I look forward to sharing the pieces that I know.

Amie Penny Sayler 1:59

Love that. So we like to start if you have something that you want to share with any stories you have about a grandma or a nana, a favorite or powerful story, and what you called your grandma.

Dr. Yourdan's Personal Story

Dr. Erika Yourdan 2:11

I love this question. And I've been really thoughtful in my response here over the last day or so. I think when we think about ancestral trauma, it's important that we recognize how that can be transmitted in a number of different ways, but a lot of ways it's transmitted relationally. And so I think about the relationships in my family and how it was often difficult for me to have that close relationship with a grandmother figure that I would have liked based on, you know, family conflict that was ongoing. And so my relationship with extended family largely depended on the temperature of the family dynamics at the time. But I think about my dad's mom. He actually was my stepdad, so we're really not biologically related, but her name was Maria and Abuelita. But I honestly couldn't even remember if I called her Maria or Abuelita or Grandma. But one of my favorite memories of her, it's really interesting also because she didn't speak any English at all. And I didn't speak any Spanish. But one New Year's Eve, my cousins and my brother and I, we accidentally set our yard on fire. And she was so mad. And you know, we're kids and we're like going through a medicine cabinet. What can we use to make this fire bigger? And we found rubbing alcohol. I mean, we really thought we were gonna impress everyone on New Year's Eve. She was not impressed. And even though she was yelling at us in Spanish and I could tell that she was big mad, I got this sense of love from her. And I think that was the first time in my life I realized that anger and love could exist in the same space. And so that's something that I really carried with me all of these years.

Amie Penny Sayler 3:41

I have chills right now. I love that story. So a couple things to unpack there. One is just the beauty of that observation that anger and love can exist at the same time together. I think there are many of us, not just children, but adults, who kind of need to hear that and let that sink in because sometimes it can feel like an either-or proposition.

Dr. Erika Yourdan 4:08

Absolutely. I think we get stuck in the dichotomy of like I'm either good or I'm bad. And that really doesn't serve us, especially into adulthood, because sometimes we just are and we're not hard to love.

Amie Penny Sayler 4:20

Absolutely. And recognizing that for ourselves and then that recognition within ourselves tends to flow out to other people as well. When you've accepted that and acknowledged that for yourself, you can then see that in other people, that it's not a good versus evil hero versus villain. It's instead a person with complicated aspects of themselves and them their life.

Dr. Erika Yourdan 4:47

Absolutely. We are so complex.

Ancestral Trauma and Relational Transmission

Amie Penny Sayler 4:50

I also just really want to call out, Just Like Nana, we often talk about families and ancestors. Obviously, that's what we're focused on. But what's really important is that that's broader than just a biological person who came before you. That as humans, we create our own families during our lives. And obviously kids are in different situations where they have different access to portions of familial lines. As you call out, stepparents enter the picture, and then their families are part of our story. So just really want to take a moment to honor that. That because I feel like sometimes that might get lost that, oh, we're only talking about biological people who came before us, but that's never the case with a human because our relationships with one another are an intricate web.

Dr. Yourdan's Professional Work

Dr. Erika Yourdan 5:46

Absolutely. I'm so glad you pointed that out. I think most of the literature around ancestral trauma is, I mean, there's lots of pieces out there about the epigenetic component and how things are transmitted. There's also this whole other piece, right? Like I mentioned before, so much of what is transmitted is actually transmitted relationally. And we can be in relationship with people who we do not share DNA with. And so when you think about the relational component, it really expands the touch and the reach of ancestral trauma.

Amie Penny Sayler 6:22

Will you kind of just explain to the listeners your work, which I know is a very broad question, but um if you can kind of speak to that.

Dr. Erika Yourdan 6:31

Yeah, absolutely. That is a really broad question. And I always say I specialize in generational trauma. And consultees or supervisees or other colleagues will say, well, what does that really mean? And I'm like, well, I think you're probably doing it too. But I think it comes down to the way that I conceptualize, right? I am trained as a marriage and family therapist, so I'm very systemic in my thinking. And so not only am I considering the human in front of me, but I'm also considering all of the paths that led them to who they are today and any presenting symptoms or concerns that they're sharing with me. And so I really work to not pathologize my clients, but it's not necessarily what's wrong with you, but it's like I'm curious like what your experiences were, what happened to you, right? What are the relationships that you have had and what are things that they might be carrying that are not really theirs to hold? And so once we can kind of sort through some of that, then it's how do we help them reconnect with their body to set down what really is theirs to work on and what's no longer theirs.

Amie Penny Sayler 7:34

Can you talk a little bit about when you say ancestral trauma, what does that mean to you and kind of working in that relational piece that you've expressed?

Dr. Erika Yourdan 7:45

Yeah. When I think of ancestral trauma, I think about two pieces, not just the trauma, but I think about like what are the wounds that we've been handed? What are the burdens that we're carrying that those that came before us, caregivers, aunts, uncles, whether you're DNA related or not, what are the wounds that you're carrying that someone else unconsciously asked you to carry? But then also there's this whole other piece of, but what good were you also handed, right? We hear a lot of our clients say, well, I was really taught what not to do. Tell me more about that, right? Because when we think about the epigenetic component, we are handed both, right? We're handed the good stuff and the yuck. And instead of focusing on the yuck, I get really curious about let's talk about your biological superhero inside of you because you are now hardwired to say the things that were handed to me, I no longer have the capacity to hold. I just don't know what life looks like without holding all of those things.

The Role of Gifts and Resilience

Amie Penny Sayler 8:46

There's so much in what you just said that I'm pausing just to even think of how to begin to ask questions. The first, I guess I have is I love this idea of we don't just receive the ancestral trauma. And again, we're using ancestral very broadly, your DNA and the relationships that you have in your life. We also receive gifts. And at just like Nana, we tend to focus on the trauma, healing the trauma, that sort of thing, which certainly has a place and is important and I believe helps heal our ancestors, ourselves, and our descendants. But I just want to talk for a moment about that gift piece. When you focus on sort of what gifts or what good has been passed on the line, and someone experiences that, what does that sort of provide for that person?

Dr. Erika Yourdan 9:36

This is a great question. And you said something that I hope I can come back to the for my brain and I can touch on it. But really, what I think about those gifts and helping the client kind of begin to open their eyes to that, it changes their perspective entirely, right? Even if you had a really challenging upbringing, if your parents had a really challenging upbringing, when you kind of dig through your nervous system and you realize, like, but your line didn't stop, right? And I there are a lot of therapists out there who love the word resilience. I am on the fence on that word, right? Because I think, well, yes, we survived because the other alternative wasn't so great. But when we can really identify those characteristics, and so I think about this client that I had, and there was lots of food hoarding, not wanting to go and buy groceries, keeping what they had and almost rationing it out. And we spent a lot of time working on that. And as we trace that back through the nervous system and we used a little bit of EMDR for that, the client was able to trace it all the way back to her indigenous roots, where her ancestors had to hoard and ration their food because if they refused to give their children up to be put in the white schools, they were cut off from their rations. And so by holding the food, and I get emotional every time I share this story, by holding the food, they could ensure, even if it was just a little bit, it was enough to sustain them until they could get their next round of rations or until they could hunt or fish or whatever. And so it feels like a really terrible experience. I mean, it is a really terrible experience. And to hear it, I have a very visceral reaction. But then you fast forward to her generation and the ability she has to pinch a penny when they're a single-income family. That is something that was passed down through the generations. But now we just have to help her use that more adaptively, right? Bringing her awareness to you have plenty of food, you have enough money for groceries. How can we let this overactive part of you rest just a little bit? It is a superpower, but your superpower is overfunctioning.

Amie Penny Sayler 11:46

I assume when you're talking about the schools, you're talking about the so-called Indian boarding schools.

Dr. Erika Yourdan 11:52

Yes.

Amie Penny Sayler 11:53

I just want to take a moment to just acknowledge the strength of that family from the generation that was trying to keep their children out of that system all the way up to current day. So thank you for sharing that story.

Dr. Erika Yourdan 12:09

Yeah, absolutely.

Amie Penny Sayler 12:10

When you talk about, you know, you mentioned that that sort of sense of trauma, that burden kind of lives in the body. Can you address that more? What does that mean? Is it, and maybe you don't exactly have the answer to this, but is it an energy? Is it a chemical? I mean, what's living in the body and how do we begin to access that?

Dr. Erika Yourdan 12:33

In its simplest form, in the work that I do, right? The things that live in the body are felt senses. And so my clients often have this, I don't know if you've heard the term psychological homelessness, right? But it's kind of this ongoing search for like, and I remember I felt this way for so many years, probably well into my 30s. I didn't ever feel like I quite fit. But no matter where I went, I felt homesick, but I didn't know what I was homesick for. And so I think in a lot of the research that I've done, psychological homelessness fits really, I mean, when I heard that term, it really resonated. And as I've shared that with clients, that really fits. Because when we have ancestral trauma, something that kind of lives comorbid with it is this culture of silence. And so if we're not talking about it, how can we begin to understand, right, what our ancestors have experienced, what our experience is. And so we close in and we're holding these things. And when that gets passed down, then we hold this felt sense that we don't know where it came from and we have no idea how to go about solving it because it's just something that's always existed in us. And so when clients come and they say, I don't know what's wrong with me, I don't know where this is coming from, I don't remember anything terrible happening happening to me as a child, maybe not, but that felt sense is still living in your body, and those wounds are pre-verbal.

Amie Penny Sayler 13:56

You just exactly named what I was gonna go to and what I was gonna ask you about, is that I think, and I'd love for you to speak to this, one of the challenges is our brains think and talk in words and um and stories like that's how humans have learned through, I think, all of time is through the passing of stories. So when there's a silent story without any words, and we can't use the words to describe it, can you just sort of address those challenges and then how a person kind of feels into that sense without the words for it?

Dr. Erika Yourdan 14:35

Yeah, I love this question. And I feel like this is where our work gets really client-specific. When we are holding wounds that we can't access with our words, we develop a mistrust of our body because I'm feeling this way, but the rest of the world doesn't feel like it's on fire, but inside I feel like I'm on fire. And so that's generally the first place I start with clients is your body's trying to tell you something. So let's actually try to sit with it and see if we can begin to understand, because our body is ultimately what unlocks the healing for us. And it's really hard for we my sweet friend Laurel Thornton, she practices in West Virginia. She calls our kind of overachiever clients the left brain hiders. And I think that I see this a lot with ancestral trauma. We try to hide in our left brain because if we can just make it make sense or we can make it fit on our checklist, then this is the path to healing. And so it's really about getting people out of the left side of their brain and more into the right and just allowing them to experience that and then develop their own language around it. Because when the stories go untold for generations, they need language because language can then facilitate their own healing process.

Amie Penny Sayler 15:52

I am loving and I will so be internet searching and looking for more information on both psychological homelessness. I had not heard that phrase before, and it did also immediately sort of hit me. You know, when you you hear something or you see something and your whole body just reacts to it as truth?

Dr. Erika Yourdan 16:16

Yes, that's your body telling you, hey, now we have language for this felt sense.

Amie Penny Sayler 16:21

Absolutely. So I experienced that, and then the was it left brain hiding? Yes.

Dr. Erika Yourdan 16:28

Love that as well. Thank you for those terms.

Amie Penny Sayler 16:31

So let's talk about your feeling that in the body. How do you start to release that? And can you, I know that you've you mentioned, and I know your work focuses on the nervous system. Can you sort of start to talk about that as well? How we utilize our nervous system to help us start to heal.

The Power of Nature and Eco-Therapy

Dr. Erika Yourdan 16:47

Yeah, absolutely. I just love Dr. Stephen Porges's work on polyvagal theory. He's given us a really great framework, I think, to begin to understand some of the things that live in our body and what circuits of the nervous system they currently live in. And then we can kind of trace some of that back, right? To ancestral wounds, ancestral strengths, to figure out how our body was kind of neurobiologically programmed. The nervous system gives us so many wonderful pieces of information, but we don't live in a world that encourages us to listen to our body. And so, so much of my work with clients is first of all, how do we listen to the body? And then once we can figure out how to listen to our body, we need to actually give our body what it's asking us for. And so one of my favorite things to tell our clients is as we begin this work and we are trying to listen and understand what our body is telling us, we can't heal in place and we don't heal in unsafe spaces. And so while I my hope is that my clients always feel safe enough to do the work in my office, that's only a small piece of it, right? I'm doing them a disservice if I'm not setting them up to carry this out into the real world. And so I have most of my clients who are willing to sign an ecotherapy waiver, prefacing with that with like, I am not an ecotherapist, but I think when we can get outside and connect with nature, then we can really begin to connect with our body differently. We experience all of the senses when we're outdoors, and then it gives them something that they can also take, you know, uh we have grass, we have rocks, we have trees, and then they can experience a similar sense of safety at home or at their work or at their friend's house. And so it's really important to equip them to kind of take their healing on the road, right? Because we get them for 53 minutes once a week, sometimes every other week. And so really just giving them that nut of like we don't heal in place, and we're gonna lay a really good foundation, but then you're gonna go and you're gonna continue this in between sessions. And I think it also is an invitation for them to realize like, I do get to heal from this, I can do this, and I don't have to be in therapy forever.

Amie Penny Sayler 19:06

I love that because it gives so much power, authority, agency to the person who is healing to understand. Oh, yes, Dr. Yourdan is acting as my guide and she's giving me resources and ideas, but ultimately it is the person themselves who is doing the actual healing.

Dr. Erika Yourdan 19:26

Absolutely.

Creating a Sense of Belonging

Amie Penny Sayler 19:27

They're making use of all of those generational gifts, right? Absolutely. I love the idea of ancestors sort of standing shoulder to shoulder to help with the healing as well. I did also just want to touch on because I think it's so powerful and fundamentally just truth, for lack of a better word, the power of being outside in nature. And, you know, as you were sort of talking about that ecotherapy, I was thinking about, and this word psychological homelessness is in my brain. And I was thinking about how when I'm either barefoot on the earth and kind of earth, not really concrete, but grass, dirt, something like that, or standing among trees, maybe touching a tree that, and I mean, I'm using this very loosely because I again I just heard this, but that sense of that psychological homelessness, it feels abated. I don't feel it in the same way when I feel part of this ecosystem of Earth.

Dr. Erika Yourdan 20:40

Yes. Oh, I love that. And you're exactly right. That's the hope. Because not only are you finding your way back to connecting to the earth, but you're finding your way back to that place of home in your nervous system. I love that you mentioned that. Can I share a quick story? Absolutely, please. So I just went on a wonderful therapist retreat in Mexico, and my husband and I are we're doing our ancestry DNA. We're I'm trying to figure out because I don't know very much about my biological dad dad's side of the family, but I believe we have origins in Mexico. And while we were on this retreat, we went and we did a cenote tour, and I have always felt so at home in Mexico. Something in my body feels different. I don't know if it's the ocean and the trees or a combination of all of the things. But when we were doing our tour, we're our tour guide was he was wonderful. He was very kind and very funny, but he really wanted to get to know us. And he was asking about where we came from, and he goes, Are you Mexican? And I said, I think so. I mean, I've been told my whole life I'm half Mexican. But I, you know, I think I have a general idea of where my family comes from, but we're in the process of finding that out. And he said, You are Mexican too. And he said, Welcome home. And Amie, my heart just like something shifted in my body, and I thought, okay, now I'm like, even. And more driven to find out where in Mexico I actually come from because something in my body shifts when I'm there.

Amie Penny Sayler 22:08

That is beautiful and profound. And I'm so happy for you that you had that experience with that tour guide. That brought tears to my eyes. Like I could just feel how powerful that felt to you.

Dr. Erika Yourdan 22:20

Yeah, it was. It was it was wonderful.

Amie Penny Sayler 22:23

I would like to talk just a little bit about, and this kind of gets back to your sort of original answer and then when we were back discussing your work, and then a little bit of your Abuelita that you called your grandma and that story that you were telling about her and what you just mentioned, which is the experience when you are cut off from portions of your family. And the cutoff can be a permanent. It could be that it, you know, you never had access to it. The cutoff could be sort of a an intermittent or very weak access. And I think that that's probably something that many people have experienced, at least with one portion of the family. And I will just the full disclosure that that's something that I experienced growing up. And to me, at least, I don't want to obviously speak for other people, it does sort of contribute to that sense of not quite belonging when you don't. And I mean, this is little kid thinking, so I want to name that, but when you feel like you don't even quite belong with your family, and I called that little kid thinking, but that sense does carry with you into adult life. Can you sort of address for listeners who maybe have some estrangement, have varying levels of access to their family about how you can sort of, I don't want to call it bypassing that, but maybe how how you can kind of generate that sense of belonging for yourself without the access to parts of your family.

Dr. Erika Yourdan 23:53

Oh, I feel so connected to you, Amie. It sounds like we've had similar backgrounds. And I completely agree. I think it contributes a lot to that psychological homelessness piece and that sense of belonging. And I mean, I don't belong or I don't seem to fit. That is little kid language, but it follows us into adulthood. And then we have years, right, that just kind of build. And so our brains are looking for evidence of not belonging, right? And so this shows up in friendships and partnerships when someone hurts our feelings instead of recognizing it as, oh, maybe they're having a bad day, or maybe I hurt their feelings and I need to repair. We take it as a deep personal rejection. And so one of the first ways that we can start to look for a sense of belonging is to look for challenges to that narrative, right? It's I'm not a narrative therapist, but I think we do need to map that influence. Like, where did we first learn that we didn't belong? And then what are exceptions to that, right? How is it showing up differently? What friends do you have? How long have you been friends with them? Tell me about your job. And if even those things feel very minimal, this is where animals and pets can be so helpful. And then we can give a voice, right, to their pet. And I'm a dog lover, I have a cat, my daughter loves her. What would your dog or your cat say about you as a pet owner? Do you remember to feed them? Do you spend time with them? Are they excited to see you when you come home? And then slowly expanding that. And as they begin to connect with our body and they can begin to trust, like I can be safe in spaces and I can hold myself accountable in relationships, what other areas do you belong? And that feels like very small. But I think when our ancestral wounds feel so big, we continue to look for ways that affirm that narrative. And so we have to be really intentional to kind of create a new neuropathway of like, well, that might have been true, or that might have been what someone else told me. But just because somebody else told me this, whether verbally or non-verbally, doesn't make it true. And here are things that I know to be true.

Amie Penny Sayler 26:04

Thank you. I am going to re-listen to that probably about 20 times. I own a dog and six cats.

Dr. Erika Yourdan 26:12

I love this. Do you want a seventh cat?

Amie Penny Sayler 26:16

I would not take your daughter's cat. She needs that cat. I just thank you for this so much. And I feel like you just showed me a little doorway to a potential path for me. So I'm just, I'm so appreciative. The the saying that I will sometimes say about my animals when my adult children will comment about how spoiled my animals are, is I'll say, Well, I have to believe like Paris Hilton spoils her dog more, right? And when I think of that as the standard that I'm looking to, I realize they're probably well cared for. Super well cared for.

Practical Steps for Healing

Dr. Erika Yourdan 27:29

Yeah, I think the first, whether you are going to therapy or not, but the first step is what do you want to believe? What is your intention in kind of wrestling with this information? And oftentimes that's because we want to believe we're good and belong or that we can heal. And so choose one or two statements. What really resonates with you? Put it on a sticky note and then put it on your bathroom mirror or someplace that you're gonna see multiple times this day. When we think about what our body is trying to tell us, right? Our brain is hardwired to believe one thing. And so I worked with a fantastic client here in I'm in Texas, cattle ranchers. They said, when I explained like the strength of this neuropathway, right, and how hard it is to create a new neuropath. Our brains are very neuroplastic. We can do this, but this connection is really strong. And so we have to on purpose bring our awareness to the other thing that's also true. And this cattle rancher, he was so funny, he said, So you mean it's like when I'm out feeding my cows and I gotta move their trough, there's no dirt path, but they're gonna make a dirt path if I leave the trough there long enough. And I was like, Yes, move your trough and let your cows come. And so we gotta move our trough. And we need a visual representation of what that is, because as we start to shift our awareness to the location of our new trough, that neuropathway is gonna get stronger. And when we can strengthen something that is true and adaptive, well, now we have really got some warriors in our corner to battle the yuck. And so that's a great first step. And then just like you mentioned, you know, earthing, connecting with the earth as much as possible, the real earth. I love that you mentioned, like not concrete. We need to get outside, we need to experience everything that nature can offer. And so the more time you can spend connecting to the earth, there's something really beautiful and spiritual about tapping into your nervous system when you're out in nature. And so those are two great places to start. And then when you start to feel safe enough in your body, sometimes you have to do it scared. And so I tell my clients this all the time. When you are logically safe enough, because our brains, right? Those left brain hydros, we can logic away. And so when you are logically safe enough, do it scared.

Amie Penny Sayler 30:02

I love all of that. I love the cattle rancher story. That is fantastic. I love do it scared because yeah. And I like that it's not just as you described, it's not just be terrified and do it anyway. It's logic yourself into there is safety and it's okay to do this scared because my brain knows that there is safety.

Dr. Erika Yourdan 30:25

Absolutely.

Amie Penny Sayler 30:26

I would also love to just have some final words from you for anyone who feels overwhelmed by their family history, and they're probably feeling overwhelmed by the trauma, not the gifts. What would you want them to hear right now?

Dr. Erika Yourdan 30:41

You are exactly where you belong, and you were chosen to be the cycle breaker, to be the disruptor, to be the transitional character long before you ever touched your feet to the earth. So even though you don't feel like you can do it, you only need to take one step. And it might not be a step forward. It might be a step sideways. You might even say, I actually need to take a step back, whether that be from responsibilities or family or whatever you need to take a step back from, give yourself permission to do that and start small. You cannot heal generations of ancestral wounds and just lean in and give yourself the patience and the grace that it's gonna take to actually change things for the next generation.

Amie Penny Sayler 31:31

Thank you so much, Doctor. It has been so lovely to talk with you today. And on behalf of myself and those hearing this, we just we so appreciate your guidance and wisdom and resources for taking that step, whether it's forwards, sideways, back, diagonal, no matter what direction it is. Thank you.